David Elliott (Canada)
David Lloyd "Smoky" ' Elliott' (1923-1999) was a Canadian poet and academic. Life Elliott was born in Garnish, Newfoundland. He grew up in a number of Newfoundland fishing outports, but spent most of his youth in Campbellton, Notre Dame Bay. He left school at age 15 to become a telegraph operator and later served in World War II. In his memoir, A Soldier First, General Rick Hillier, retired Chief of Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces, recalls borrowing books from David Elliott while a boy growing up in Campbellton, and recounts the story that Elliott served in military intelligence during World War II.Hillier, General Rick, A Soldier First: Bullets, bureaucrats and the politics of war, Toronto: Harper Collins, 2009, 15-17. Print. At age 25 Elliott entered Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he won numerous scholarships and awards, graduating with a 1st-class degree in English language and literature. Following studies in psychology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, he worked for a time as a clinical psychologist in St. John's, and then as an editor with the Queen's Printer in Ottawa before returning to Memorial as a Ph.D. student in the early 1970's.Fowler, Adrian, "David Elliott's Return", Poetry Canada Review, 6:3 (Spring 1985), 20. In 1975, Elliott joined the faculty of the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College campus of Memorial University, where he taught English until his retirement in 1989. After an initial burst of creativity, Elliott wrote little between the late 1950s and the late 1970s. However, after his appointment to the English faculty at Grenfell College, inspired by an ambience that encouraged creative writing, he began to publish new poetry in literary magazines and anthologies, and began to receive invitations to read his work publicly. Elliott was one of the original performers at the literary festival, The March Hare, established in Corner Brook in the late 1980s. Writing An early poem of Elliott's was "Didymus on Saturday". Awarded 1st prize in the Newfoundland Arts and Letters Competition in the early 1950s, it became 1 of the most anthologized contemporary Newfoundland poems. In it, Elliott portrays St. Thomas's disillusionment the day after the Crucifixion. An apparently simple narrative is complicated by language that underscores the naked humanity of all the characters, and by point of view, which, in locating the monologue on the day between Christ's death and his resurrection, shows it to be time-limited. Having seen Christ walk to death between two thieves, "A little man whose face was cracked with fear, / And a tall man whose eyes were dull with doom", Thomas is overcome with biting shame for having believed easily. The poem ends in abandonment and despair as Thomas resolves to leave "this gray Jerusalem / where he lies sleeping in the hollowed stone, / Never to come into his kingdom now." Recognition In 1982, a studio recording of Elliott reading his poetry was included on the vinyl disc, Newfoundland Poets, Vol. 1 (Pigeon Inlet Productions). In 1988, his poetry was collected in The Edge of Beulah. In 1998 he was the 1st person to be honored by the March Hare festival by having that year's festival dedicated in his name, a practice that has since become an annual feature of the event.Fowler, Adrian, "Introduction", The March Hare Anthology (St. John's: Breakwater Books, 2007), vi-vii. Publications *''The Edge of Beulah: A book of poems''. St. John's, NL: Breakwater Books, 1988.Search results = au:David Elliott 1923-1999, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 26, 2014. See also *Newfoundland poets *List of Canadian poets References External links ;Books *David Elliott at Amazon.ca ;About Category:1923 births Category:1999 deaths Category:Canadian poets Category:Writers from Newfoundland and Labrador Category:20th-century poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:Newfoundland poets